So now it's winter time in Maryland, which can mean damn near anything. That axis-tilt that affects the rest of the planet's weather has no bearing on our little meteorological oddity. One day will be warm and sunny, the next cold and soaking. Week one will be breezy and slightly chilly, and week two will bitter cold. Snow is always a possibility, and if you want to conduct a strange social experiment then bring up the word "snow" to a Marylander. People in the Old Line State will laugh off riots, shrug at earthquakes, and maybe bat an eye if Godzilla were to attack, but any mention of the cold white stuff and we will do anything from cry out in rage to full-blown panic. My point to this and how it pertains to today's book is…I don't know. Maybe I just needed to give everyone an update.

Plucker is a strange one appropriately written by a strange man, an artist by the name of Brom. Just roll with it. I was first aware of Brom's work when I played a Wild West role-playing game called Deadlands, the Weird West. The cover showed Brom's interpretation of a badass undead gunslinger. Very cool. Ever since then I've learned that this man's paintings are more in tune with late autumn, namely Halloween. He specializes in nightmarish pieces that cover everything from the cool, to the creepy, to the disturbing. Plucker is his attempt at a not-children's story. Oh it has childlike elements, like talking toys, magic and monsters under the bed, but this book quickly disperses any notion of typical "childlike innocence." Imagine if Stephen King wrote A Toy Story, or if Tchaikovsky decided that instead of making The Nutcracker Suite into a ballet, he would make it into a heavy metal ballad (By the way, that would be AWESOME). I have a hard time placing this book. The swear words, gore and truly dark images, inside and outside of Brom's art, would prevent it from becoming a children's story. So then who is it for? Maybe I should explain.

The lead character is Jack, as is "Jack in the box." He's a forgotten toy that gets delegated to the dark and dusty realm of "Under-bed." The other toys won't even look at him because they fear their own upcoming fate. Things look bleak until the boy's father brings back an ancient demon-containing doll from Africa and accidently breaks it. It was clearly a bonehead move on his part when the demon, the titular Plucker, breaks free and starts draining the boy's soul for his own. The Plucker makes minions of its own, the Foulthings, to capture, kill and devour the other toys. This sends the book from "creepy" to "oh dear God that's sick!" The boy's nanny, Mabelle, fixes Jack up and uses her own African magic to arm Jack so he can go kill the Plucker and save the boy. From here Jack follows the Heroic Journey into the dark underworld of Under-bed to hunt the Plucker down to save his friends, the boy, and ultimately the day.

I am having the hardest time deciding what merits to judge this book. From a simple, academic point of view, the chapters are quick and get right to the point. They're short, but poignant. The problem is that they're short and poignant. Yes, they can be exciting and it makes for an easy read (When I started I covered about seven chapters in ten minutes), but if read by themselves they're light on details and emotions. There's no time to analyze the scenery, the metaphysics, or the emotional level to anything because here comes some other horror or weirdness. The main reason why is because of Brom's artwork. His paintings and sketches often tell the story twice as well as his words. This is often the case with children's books, or what people think children books should be like, but I think it's pretty obvious that this isn't a kiddy book. That brings me to my main problem. Who is this book for? Horror readers? Sci-fi and fantasy readers? Goths? I don't know. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed it for the most part. I could have used a little more pathos per page, but overall it was good. It just confuses me on some levels on both the written and illustrated levels. There were pictures that just seem to be there for shock value (and I never liked shock value), while some characters show up just in time to die. Don't get too attached to the Red Knight. He may look scary and badass but I doubt his appearances lasted more than ten pages combined.

I guess this book is for the disenfranchised young-at-heart. I think. It's a good scary story, and it covers the twisted and frightening aspects of fairy tales and mythology when it can. But it crosses the line from scary to gross at times, I'm thinking primarily of when the Foulthings first attacked a Hula-girl doll, and I wonder if that was there to be gripping or just plain mean. I've read Brom's other artbook/story called The Devil's Rose, and that was much better, namely because it starred his world-famous undead cowboy badass. Plucker was a good first start, and I think he was just earning his credit and stride as a writer. I do like the fact that he makes fun of himself in the author's bio. Would I recommend it to kids? Hell no, but I won't hold that against this book. It's hard to nail a grade down, but I have to keep my precedent. Plucker by Brom earns a…
B-.
I want to stick to that before I change my mind. Maybe someone could persuade to hand it a higher or even lower grade, but I feel that should cover it. It's not the greatest, but it's better than average. Give it a read if you still like playing with toys and fighting monsters.